Agile Delivery

The Thank you Retrospective

Reading Time:
2 mins read
Ben Willmott
Founder

What is the ‘Thank You’ Retrospective?

This retrospective I first read about on Agile Cafe and it worked really well for one of our teams.

It's important to say thank you, but it's not done enough or understood how important this phrase can be. 

Within or as your retrospective there is a simple activity you can do. Each team member has the complete 3 things on a "Thank You" certificate: "From", "To" and "For"

The rules for the retrospective:

  • Each member needs to complete 3 certificates for internal team members and 2 for external team members 
  • In “For” the team member needs to put something that helped him/her to do a better job. The idea is avoid comments like “For: he/she is a good team player” or “For: he/she is good team member”.
  • Each certificate (+ one “gift” card) will be delivered “in person” for the full team (gift card optional)
  • As a team member, if you complete 5 certificates or more, you also will receive one “gift” card (optional)
  • Time box the writing of the certificates to either 10 or 15 minutes. 
  • Once everyone has finished, each person reads out their thank you certificate to the recipient, then passes it to them.
  • For any external team member thank you certificates, share them after or leave them on their desk. 

This is a very simple retrospective idea that has a big impact on all teams. Other teams will be surprised when one full team of people approached their desks with a "Thank you" card. 

People will be proud of each certificate! 

Need more retrospective ideas, take a look at Car Brand or Sail Boat retrospectives

You can get a Free Thank You certificate below.

Ben Willmott
Founder
Ben is Delivery Director at the London based creative agency Wunderman Thompson where he creates bespoke ways or working for his clients and teams. Ben is also the founder of The PPM Academy specializing in coaching Project Management, Agile Delivery and how to be more productive at home and work.

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